Happily Hatoful
by minkspit
Summary: Anghel goes birthday shopping, Nageki is sad, and Sakuya makes some bad decisions. A series of prompt-driven shorts about the cast (now posted together and not on tumblr).
1. family

In a crowded home like theirs, five cents was a big deal. Twenty cents, even more so. And a dollar? They didn't talk of spending dollars. Those were things reserved for feeding the family and slowly paying the bills on the rickety Hatoful House. Hitori knew this better than anyone, especially as the main exhausted breadwinner in the orphanage—but no one said it was impossible to save up a few pennies.

Hitori entered the room carrying a package in his beak. He sighed when he saw the tent of blankets on the lower bunk bed.

 _Clunk._

The mass under the blankets stirred as Hitori sat down the package on the floor next to it. He looked over the covers.

"…Nageki, I know you're in there."

No reply. Hitori was preparing to pick up the package and leave after the silence stretched on for longer than five minutes when there was another rustling under the covers.

"No I'm not."

Nageki's voice was muffled, quiet without the addition of the covers. Hitori gently picked at the covers with his beak, pulling them off the face of the mourning dove underneath. Nageki blinked slowly. His feathers were ruffled from being pressed against the blankets.

"Ms. said you were running a fever again, so I came home from work early. Do you feel better now?" Hitori said.

"The fever is gone." Nageki blinked slowly. "Most of it. You… you shouldn't have come home from work. Someone else can take care of me. It's not important, I always get sick; you know that, Hitori."

"It's fine," Hitori said. "It's Friday anyway; I was going to come home early for the family dinner. But I did get you something on the way back!"

Nageki sat up as Hitori plucked up the package from the floor and sat it onto the bed. Nageki perked up as he flipped through the aged book. Hitori had taken care to peel off the price stickers, new and old, before giving it to him. Despite Nageki's glazed eyes, Hitori could already see interest growing in them besides the illness.

"I thought it would be something you'd like," Hitori said. "I wasn't sure, though…"

"Thank you, Hitori," Nageki said, carefully putting the book aside. "It's wonderful."

"You really like it? Oh, good; that's a relief!" Hitori said. "I knew you were already done with the books we had around the house, and I didn't want you getting bored while you were sick again."

"Because I don't do much else around the house but read," Nageki said. His cheer was fading.

"Well there's not much else to do when you're sick," Hitori said. "And you help Ms. and everyone else out in the garden or kitchen. You set the table with everyone else."

"And I don't work or help get money," Nageki said. He coughed, trembling, and Hitori sat up with concern.

Nageki held still and said nothing as Hitori checked his temperature and tucked the covers in a nest around him.

"…I'm a waste of space."

Hitori stopped his primping. Nageki stared at the wall, his blue-rimmed eyes flat.

"No you're not, Nageki," Hitori said, and he took to preening his younger brother. "Everyone here wants you here. You're too young to work, and it would make you sicker; I've told you that before. No one expects you to work."

"I know," Nageki said, looking down, and Hitori continued to preen him.

"I know you feel bad, but don't be so down," Hitori said. "When you feel better tomorrow, you can help me gather millet from the garden. Sounds good?"

Nageki looked at the corner of the room he was pressed into. It was covered in worn beige wallpaper as dull as his feathers, as old and motionless as the pile of tattered paperbacks gathered at the sides of the bed, and just as apt at gathering dust.

"Yes," he said.


	2. tail-feather augmentation

_tailfeather augmentation: a prompt_

* * *

"Sakuya, this is a terrible idea."

Sakuya tilted his head and looked down with such noble irritability that Ryouta almost felt he should bow in apology for speaking up.

"Nonsense, Kawara. Terrible? How preposterous; this is an excellent idea. What could possibly go wrong?"

"I'm serious, Sakuya," Ryouta said. He felt nervous even mentioning this in public. Didn't Oko have super senses, of a sort? "San is very touchy and proud of his running; he doesn't want anything to mess with it. He clips his tail for a reason. If you mess it up–"

Sakuya scoffed. "Commoner! Do not correct me!" Ryouta shut his beak immediately. Wow, he even sounds royal.

Sakuya preened when he saw Ryouta had silenced to pay attention, straightening out the blade-like feathers on his own impressive fan tail.

"As I was saying, if the… beastial track-running wild bird wishes to visit the winter picnic this December, properly, he needs to be presentable. As a fellow fantail, I cannot allow him to arrive at the party with that mockery of a clipped tail behind him!"

As if to punctuate his words, a window shattered behind them.

"COO!"

(What mockery of me is this! I am hobbled! Slowed! The wind catches the mighty Oko San, and it pulls him back! How dare you try and restrain me on my quest to achieve true pudding! En guarde! Blaggards! Prepare to draw!)

"SAKUYA, FLY!"

"WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE I'M DOING?!"

"Coo!"

(How dare you!)

"I thought you said you were only going to have his tail feathers extended a little? Sakuya, that's not a little; that's a full-blown makeover! No wonder Oko San is so angry!"

"'A little'? That is far less than a little by Le Bel standards! I was only attempting to help him; the commoner needed all of the assistance he could get!"

"Coo!"

(You cannot escape from me in that manner, scum! Come back!)

"GAH!"


	3. how an ang(h)el shops

"Would this talisman to ward off evil be acceptable? No, Edel Blau can do such a thing on her own violation; she would need not a talisman…"

"Anghel."

"Perhaps she would prefer a sword like that I carried when we faced Evil Sorcerer Wallenstein and the Tree of Blight? Yes, I believe that would– argh, no! How could I be so foolish and blinded by the Clouds of Consternation? Edel Blau is a Sleeping Servant of the Heavens; a mighty warrior who faces her foes with naught a weapon but her own fists and boiling hunter-gatherer instincts–"

"Have you been talking to her and Ryouta?"

"Yes." Anghel tilted his head, finally looking up from the long, laboriously scribbled list that was exploding off the library table. "I have been speaking to the Undertaker and the Apostle of the Blue Sky. Why do you ask, mournful Eternal Scholar?"

Nageki sighed. He pushed aside one of Anghel's many loose leaf pages covered in indecipherable scribbles from his book.

"No particular reason."

"Textoris Melodia Funeris is in my daily spot of gathering when the dawn strikes, so I receive the opportunity to speak to him often–AH!" Anghel stood up, slamming his wings on the table. "Textoris Melodia Funeris would have the knowledge I seek! He would know what Edel Blau seeks on the day of her reincarnation that cometh yearly under the Sixth Holy Star!"

Nageki looked up from his book and shushed Anghel, narrowing his eyes. Anghel lowered his voice to a whispering roar.

"Perhaps he has already gotten her a gift for her Day of Reckoning. He was speaking to the Hallowed Magician of White of it."

Nageki closed his book, slipping his bookmark into it.

"Anghel, Hiyoko's birthday was a week ago."

Anghel fell backwards out of his chair, crashing onto the floor.

" _What?!_ "


End file.
